Saving Ghana’s Rice Industry from Collapse

The revelation that more than 1.3 million metric tonnes of paddy rice are lying idle in warehouses across the country is alarming and demands urgent national attention.

This crisis exposes deep flaws in Ghana’s agricultural value chain and threatens to undermine years of investment and effort toward achieving self-sufficiency in rice production.

According to the Rice Producers Association and the Apex Farmers Association, the unsold stock includes over 200,000 metric tonnes from the 2024 harvest in the Upper East, Northern, and North East regions. Worse still, the National Rice Development data projects that Ghana’s 2025 harvest could reach 1.5 million metric tonnes — a positive development on paper, but a looming disaster in reality if the current market paralysis persists.

The situation is not merely an economic inconvenience; it is a national emergency. Farmers have invested heavily in production with the hope that the State’s commitment to promote local rice consumption would translate into actual market access. Yet, their warehouses are overflowing, while imported and often substandard rice continues to flood the market — some of it expired or smuggled, according to reports. The contradiction is indefensible.

The Committee for the Promotion of Local Rice has proposed a pragmatic set of interventions: a six-month suspension of rice importation, tighter border controls, and a medium- to long-term import strategy aligned with national production capacity.

In our view, these are sensible measures that deserve swift government consideration. The Committee’s call for all public institutions — namely schools, hospitals, prisons, and security services — to procure exclusively Ghana rice and maize is also timely. Such a policy would not only create guaranteed demand but also stimulate rural economies and job creation along the value chain.

Equally critical is the appeal for the government to release funds to the National Food Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO) to buy surplus rice and maize. This should be complemented by a guaranteed minimum price to protect farmers from predatory middlemen and fluctuating market forces.

When producers cannot sell their harvests, they lose income, incur debt, and may eventually abandon farming altogether, thereby jeopardising national food security.

The Ghanaian Times finds it disheartening that despite government assurances — including a promise in September that NAFCO would buy every grain of rice and maize — no concrete action has been taken.

The frustration among farmers is therefore understandable, and their threat to boycott the 2025 Farmers’ Day celebration should serve as a wake-up call to policymakers.

Ghana cannot continue to promote slogans of “Eat Ghana Rice” while leaving its farmers stranded. The time for speeches and committees is over. What is needed now is decisive political will to protect local producers, streamline import policies, and ensure that the nation’s pursuit of food self-sufficiency is not reduced to rhetoric.

If handled well, this crisis could become a turning point — a catalyst for genuine reform in Ghana’s agricultural policy. If ignored, it could mark the slow death of a vital sector on which millions depend for their livelihoods.

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